I'm becoming a mean teacher...

I've was looking over my blog and noticed that most of the time I write and show pictures of the fun and happy things going on in my life and rarely seem to mention the not-so-fun things that happen. I would hate to give a false impression that everything is always hunky dory with me because the reality is that it's not. And today was a prime example of a bad day in the life of Christine. So if your interested, let me tell you about it. The title of this post may give some indication as to the nature of my day. I am afraid that I have seen a side of me as a teacher that I hoped would never appear....or at the most appear in a slightly less obvious form. You know those teachers that you always disliked growing up, the ones that are mean one second and then your best friend the next. Or the ones that just yelled all the time and seemed to never be happy. As I started training to become a teacher, I decided that I didn't want to be that kind of teacher. I was going to be cool and fun and all the kids would like me and I would always have cool lessons. I had visions of these perfect discussions with the children; all of them staring right at me, eager for instruction. Hellllllloooooo........what imaginary teaching planet was I on??? The reality is, as I have began to experience, that those visions are few and far between. Today was probably my worst teaching experience yet. I don't mean to make it sounds like I have had mostly bad experiences and this tops it all off. On the contrary, actually...most of teaching experiences thus far have been amazing. Maybe thats why my experience yesterday was so shocking to me and definetely classifed under the 'live and learn' section of my portfolio.
I was at a rougher school this afternoon and unbeknownst to me, I had a very difficult class. This I soon realized. Within about 1/2 hour, I noticed one particular child becoming quite figgity and irritated. He told me he had ADD and so I excused his impatience and continued teaching the rest of the class. Then, out of no where, this student told me he had had enough of me and chose many VERY inappropriate words and directed them at me. I was in complete shock and a deafening silence came over the room. Did I just hear what I think I heard? Did an 8 year old just use those words and fire them AT me? It's amazing how they can hurt, even though they come from a child who is not in their right mind. The principal was immediately called in and the child was taken out of my hands for the rest of the day. I couldn't concentrate after that. The rest of the class was still quite chatty and I could never seem to get their attention. I had to raise my voice more than once and even send a kid into the hall. I hated it. Its not me. I didn't sign-up for this job as police officer. Its like I have these out of body experiences where all of the sudden I find myself doing and saying these things in order to control the kids and I don't know how I got there. I really want to be a nice teacher, but unfortunatly, I think I've ended up in the bad books of a few children. I guess if thats all I've lost so far, in the bigger scheme of things, its not really a big deal.
Its been really interesting as a supply teacher for me to build and develop 'my style' as a teacher. Obviously being a supply teacher as opposed to a permanent teacher automatically establishes you as lower on the authority scale than the regular classroom teacher and perhaps I should not except such good behaviour while I am in charge. Who am I, really, in the minds of the children that I only am in charge of for sometimes no more than an hour or two? I guess I am learning more and more of who I want to be as a teacher; of the standards I want to set in my own classroom someday. I am striving for consistency. I hate that I feel all over the place sometimes, as I constantly face new situations. I want to be a teacher of my word; a teacher who is fair, yet firm; fun, yet respected. I know it takes time to develop, and in the mean time, the up and down days will continue. Tomorrow, I am hoping for an 'up-day'. I need to be reminded of the joys of teaching.